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“Come aboard!”
A rope ladder was thrown down, and Tara leaned over to plant a kiss on Pete’s face. She imagined he might have blushed. “Don’t worry. I will make it home,” she promised him.
Grabbing her satchel and securing it around her shoulders, she reached for the rope and carefully climbed her way up to the deck. Richard was there to help her on board.
“You know, you are insane,” he told her huskily.
“Just following the lead of my captain!” she returned. He turned quickly, introducing her to the man on guard.
“Tara, I think you know Grant Quimbly here. Lawrence Seville is at the helm, and Gary French is working the steam engine. Make yourself at home in the cabin. We’ll be on our way.”
“Thank you, Richard,” she told him.
He nodded. “Lawrence, let’s get her under way!”
Tara looked down to the dark sea; she could barely make out Pete’s small boat.
The darkness seemed overwhelming.
But just as she thought so, the cloud cover shifted, and a pale glow of starlight filled the sky. She could see the barest sliver of a moon. It was the night of the new moon, and yet, it almost looked as if, for a moment, it was waxing crescent.
It almost appeared to be grinning.
She shivered. It seemed as if even the moon was mocking her.
CHAPTER TWO
“THEY’RE GOOD—THE BLOCKADE runners around these waters,” Captain John Tremblay told Finn, looking out at the darkness. “They’re very, very good—the men who sail in the night and the darkness. They know when to make their runs. They know how to make use of moonless nights, when cloud cover erases even the stars.” He turned and looked at Finn. “But, of course, you chose the date.”
The sea and the sky seemed to combine that night, as if they might have been sailing off the earth’s surface into a stygian void of nothingness. Setting out on the captain’s steamer, USS Punisher, they had navigated easily enough; the Key West lighthouse helped ships on both sides avoid calamity on the reefs. But Tremblay and crew were now beyond its glow, heading north, and the moonless, starless night created an eerie realm where even the truth and the horror of the war seemed of another world. The stars, of course, were out there. But cloud cover was blocking even their gentle light. The world was one, water and air merged. Watching the vastness of the ocean at night, Finn could well understand how the medieval population had believed that the world was flat.
He’d been at sea enough to comprehend winds and tides; he’d kept a small sailboat on the river for years. But here, tonight, the sky was deep velvet and blue-black, and the sea seemed to be a glass sheet as vast as the endless dark heavens above them. Though Calloway had been apprised of his mission, Captain Tremblay had not been told any of the particulars, other than a Pinkerton was seeking a certain man, and he believed that he’d find him in these waters.
Finn found himself admiring both the Union navy seamen who plied these waters and the blockade runners themselves. Of course, there was money in running the blockade, but at this stage of the war, many of the men willing to risk the noose of the Union navy did so out of a sense of patriotism; money only meant something if you were alive. Of course, there were those reckless would-be pirates who were willing to take a chance at anything, but at this stage of the game, many were also die-hard heroes, continuing to fight a losing battle in the hope of keeping the Confederacy alive long enough for the North to tire of the war before the South was completely decimated.
“What makes you think your man is a blockade runner?” Captain Tremblay asked him, handing him the spyglass.
“We intercepted communications,” Finn said. He looked through the glass, and still there was nothing to see but blackness.
“About a blockade runner?” Tremblay asked. He seemed puzzled, and then said, “Blockade runners are not often spies, except, of course, they will carry whatever information they acquire. They’re seldom assassins.”
“This one is an unusual circumstance. The man is apparently obsessed with his hatred, though I don’t suppose that’s so unusual at this time…. But he has a vendetta against Lincoln, and he just happens to be a blockade runner, and since he’s able to move around quickly and communicate with others, he’s especially dangerous.”
Finn hesitated a minute, looking at Tremblay, but he was afraid that if they didn’t catch the man tonight, whether his name was known or not wasn’t going to matter much. “He’s a man who goes by the code name of Gator. His brother was killed at Gettysburg, and one of his conspirators was apprehended in the capital—with an incriminating correspondence.”
“Many good men were killed at Gettysburg. Tens of thousands,” Tremblay said, a hoarse note in his voice. “But putting together a conspiracy … What fool puts that information in a letter?”
“Most of it was code, but we have code-breakers. This Gator is moving supplies to the Jacksonville area—there are scores of inlets that connect with the St. Johns River. A Florida militia is planning a movement somewhere in the north of the state. Gator is bringing up arms procured in the Bahamas, and beef from the Keys. His delivery made, he will continue north, without stock or arms, and gain entry close to the capital, possibly around northern Virginia or Maryland. He’ll carry nothing but legal sales goods at that point, in case he’s stopped. Once he makes land, he’ll find his way to the capital, working then as some kind of a sutler. He has fellow conspirators in the North, who will supply him with arms when the time comes. I don’t think he cares if he’s shot on the spot himself—not if he manages to kill President Lincoln. That’s why it’s imperative that we stop him now, while he’s bearing goods to break the blockade. Once he divests himself of arms, it will be difficult—even in war—to recognize him, detain him and stop him.”
“Then we’ll do our best to bring him down,” Tremblay said.
Finn lowered the spyglass. “Thank you, Captain.”
Tremblay nodded. He was an old-timer, a man who had spent his life in naval service. His beard and hair were white, his eyes were blue and his stance was square and steady. As he looked at Finn, he added, “We’ve lost many a good ship to the Confederates, you know. We had to scuttle three in the river up at Jacksonville just last November. Many of the blockade runners have guns aboard as well, but they’re not fighters. They keep themselves light and shallow for speed and the ability to slip through narrow channels and rivers. But if we come across your man, there may be a fight.”
“Captain,” Finn said, a note of bitter amusement in his voice. “Do I look like a man who’s never seen a fight?”
Tremblay studied him a moment, and then grinned sheepishly. “No, sir, you do not. But fighting as a Pinkerton is different, of course, from a fight at sea.”
“Don’t worry, Captain. I’ve seen my share of action—on land and on sea.”
Finn looked through the glass again. Nothing. His vision tended to be excellent, no matter the velvety blue-black of the night. But there was nothing to see, as yet.
And, of course, this mission could be a futile one.
Still, better futile through overexertion than through laziness and bad surveillance.
No matter how much energy it took, Finn couldn’t let this Gator make his connections, definitely could not let him reach the capital and their leader. No matter how many times guards, generals, friends and fellow politicians warned him, President Lincoln was a man of the people. He rode his carriage along the mall. He invited his constituents to speak with him. Quite simply, Lincoln believed to the core that if he was not available, then he was not serving anyone. To try to change him might well be an effort to change the very soul of the man they all strove so diligently and with such love and admiration to protect.
Finn didn’t know that he and others could prevail, not forever. He did know, however, that there had been many times when his abilities helped him single out the right person to stop in a crowd. That he had protected his charge on that particular day. He didn’t necessarily face an assassin every time, but often someone bent on harassment, or ready to throw rotten food at the president, or to create a riot out of a rally. He had done well so far, but it only took one mistake….
Like the woman at Gettysburg. Moving toward him, reaching beneath her cloak …
She had carried a scarf, he reminded himself. She might have meant nothing but a show of worship.
Yet, she had been so strange. So beautiful, and so different, dangerous … dangerous even if what she had produced had been a hand-knitted scarf. She had wanted to get close to the president, and there had just been that strange difference about her….
He still had that narrow lock of her hair in his wallet. And he still believed that she was out there somewhere, and that, one day, he would find her.
Of course, now he was here.
And still thinking about his failure that day!
Finn chafed at this assignment. He felt better serving the president nearer to him; he was ready to stop a bullet for the man at any time. He felt himself well qualified to do so.
But he also knew something about the sea, and it was true—he had seen many a naval battle and survived. He’d seen battles the good captain couldn’t begin to imagine.
Staring into the darkness, assigned to stop a blooming threat before it could fully materialize.
“You needn’t worry about me,” Finn said. “Whatever course is called, I will be ready.”
“Bosun!” the captain called, looking to the man up on the fantail behind them, a sailor who was studying the night with his own spyglass. “Any signs of life?”
“No, Captain, sir!” the sailor called back. “Not a whisper as of yet!”
Captain Tremblay looked through the glass again. “I see nothing.”
Finn narrowed his eyes suddenly, looking toward the shore. He knew that they were in an area where mangrove swamp gave way to rivers and waterways. They were now north in the Florida Keys, nearing the mainland. It was an area where the Atlantic frequently gave way to channels between the islands, where little mangrove spits were in the tectonic process of gathering silt and debris to become islands, and where trim, shallow-draft ships could easily disappear in the blink of an eye.
“There!” Finn announced suddenly.
“Where?”
“There … hugging the shore. He must know of an inlet.”
“Bosun!” the captain called.
“Nothing. I see nothing, sir!” called the lookout.
“It’s there, believe me,” Finn said. “We didn’t see her, but she’s seen us, and she’s ducking through a channel now, heading for the gulf.”
As Finn spoke, a break formed in the cloud cover overhead. The moon might be new on this January night, so crisp and cool even, but with cloud cover gone, the sky seemed to be filled with a sudden burst of starlight. Perhaps God himself was on the side of the North, Finn mused.
And there, just disappearing before them, was what almost appeared to be a ghost ship, a steam clipper, gliding away, her sails down but her masts just caught in a pale sparkle of starlight.
“Full speed ahead, sir!” Finn said.
“Man your guns!” the captain bellowed.
And the chase was on.
TARA HAD BEGUN TO FEEL that her fears had been entirely unjustified. They had set out with a light wind, cutting through the islands midway between Key West and the mainland and then out to the Atlantic, where they had run parallel with the coast. A breeze had picked up, perfect for the sails, and for a while, she had gone to the cabin, far too restless for sleep, but determined to at least lie down awhile.
And it had been while she had been there, planning a route once she reached land, that she heard Richard’s anxious shout.
“Union steamer starboard. Down the sails! Steam power, with all due speed!”
Tara jerked up and raced out to the deck. The men were grimly pulling down the sails. Richard was at the helm, and they were under steam power once again. The Peace moved quickly. Richard knew how to avoid the reefs, and she was certain that he would head back into the inlets and perhaps the gulf, doing his best to ground the enemy ship as it came in pursuit.
He cast her a glance as she hurried to him at the helm. “She’s heavily gunned,” he said tersely, indicating the enemy ship. “If the firing starts … do whatever you need to do to get out of here. Even if you haven’t the strength to go far, you’ll know where you can find shelter along the islands and the coast.”
“I’m fine, Richard.”
“You’re not listening to me. That ship is heavily gunned. I have a few small cannons. If I can’t outrun her …”
“If you can’t outrun her, you surrender,” Tara said, feeling a choking sensation in her throat. “Richard, do you hear me? You surrender. They don’t shoot down blockade runners in cold blood. They’re trying to stop the flow of supplies, not murder people.”
The look he gave her was one that clearly told her his thoughts.
No. In principle, the enemy was not out to commit murder.
But this was war.
And tempers flared and shots fired easily….
“Men die in the camps,” Richard said flatly.
“And men live in the camps!” Tara insisted.
“You should get out of here, now,” he told her.
“No.”
“You’re stubborn!”
“I know my own resources.” It was difficult to see the Union ship, but she could make out its ominous silhouette.
“Take the helm!” Richard told her.
She did, and he reached for his spyglass, looking over at the enemy ship.
“He should be over the reef any minute … grounding, I pray….” And then he swore, quickly looking at her apologetically. “He rounded it. He knows the game I’m playing.”
“You’ll outrun him,” Tara said with confidence—far more confidence than she was feeling. Few people knew these waters like a native son.
Save another native son.
“I’m heading for the channel. Maybe there …” Richard said.
“You will outrun him,” she repeated staunchly.
But the echo of her words had barely died when the sound of a cannon boom burst through the night.
The ball fell short of its target, causing the water in their wake to burst from the sea like a geyser.
“That was too close,” Richard murmured.
“Damned close!” Lawrence said.
“Aye, Grant. You and Lawrence, man the rear cannon!” Richard commanded. “Quickly. We must pray for a strike and hobble here on the reef!”
His men scurried to do as bidden. Before they could reach their posts belowdeck, a second volley came their way, closer this time. The Peace shook in the water, the waves rose and Tara quickly grabbed hold of the mast to keep her feet.
“Tara, do something to save yourself!” Richard said firmly.
“No! I’m not leaving you!”
Richard stared at her in frustration and yelled out to his men below. “Fire!”
A second later, their cannon fire boomed.
Tara stared out at the enemy ship, relieved to see a small burst of fire explode near her aft section.
“Direct hit, first volley!” she said.
Richard had his spyglass on the ship.
“She’s lamed, she isn’t dead,” he said flatly.
